


It's Awesome to be an Avenger

by ExquisitelyExplicit



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Doctor Who References, Drawing, Gen, I Made Myself Cry, It's a Wonderful Life, Physics, Science, Science Bros, Snark, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Incredible Hulk (2008) - Freeform, This will make you cry, Time Travel, Wittiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExquisitelyExplicit/pseuds/ExquisitelyExplicit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner wonders what would have happened if he had never become the Hulk. Through a series of--for once--properly thought out experiments, he wants to see what would happen if he returned to change the past...<br/>And he soon finds himself reaping the benefits of his curiosity.<br/>A story in three acts and an epilogue.</p><p>(This ties in to a story of an entirely different nature that may or may not be posted someday (with changed names). For now, ignore the oddity of the blonde haired girl.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Time Machine (Act 1)

Steve stared longingly at the sleek metal cylinder, pocketed comfortably in the wall.  
For a researcher specializing in radiation, Bruce had gained a surprisingly thorough knowledge of time theory and the necessary application of physics. Not a small portion of it was due to _Doctor Who_ episodes, Google searches, and a key he had copied to Tony’s storage unit, which held old college textbooks and all the prototypes Pepper had told him to throw away.  
While Steve was of more than average intelligence, and an excellent problem solver, he didn’t have the mind for facts and figure that Bruce did. The creator got first dibs, it seemed.  
Steve held his old sketchbook in one hand, flipping idly through the pages. The monkey on the unicycle caught his eye, but he resolutely turned to the next drawing. There was a rough portrait of Howard Stark, drawn from memory after his triumphant return to the camp. There were a lot of good things to go back to . . .  
“Maybe you should try to rethink—”  
“Tony! Enough. You’ve been telling me not to do this ever since I asked you to check initial formulas. I didn’t change my mind in that entire period. What makes you think it’s finally going to work minutes before I go?” His hair was freshly trimmed and he wore a nondescript dark suit, a bag slung over one shoulder.  
Bruce and Steve looked at each other. “If this works, I won’t be back.”  
“ . . . I know. I read _The Time Machine_ . . .”  
“I left my notes, though. I’m afraid how much it will tear the time stream, but if you like, you can still—”  
“I won’t help!” Tony cried, glaring stubbornly. “That one fucks with _my_ timeline.”  
“How would—”  
He jabbed at the drawing of his father. “That way.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yes, _well_ ,” Bruce interjected, nudging Tony out of his path. “As enlightening as this all is, I’m late for a meeting with myself.”  
Tony looked angry about the entire situation. “Haven’t you ever seen _It’s a Wonderful Life_?”  
“Yes, of course.”  
“Then you know what happens next, so why the hell are you even bothering?”  
Bruce was fiddling with something on the control panel. “Because only the concept is the same. There are no angels here to wish me out of existence. Only science. I have to work with what I’ve got. And it’s not like I’ll be dead or won’t exist, I just . . . will be back to who I was before.”  
“Why would you want to do that?”  
“Tony, shut up.”  
He turned, surprised, to look at the Captain.  
“Just because this has made _you_ a better person doesn’t mean that it’s had that effect on all of us.”  
Tony looked back stone-faced and sour. Bruce could sense the beginning of an argument brewing and he immediately realized how badly that wasn’t the way he wanted to last remember his friends.  
He tugged on the straps inside the capsule; they seemed secure. Taking a quick step, he stopped in between the two of them. “Tony, I’m going and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Steve, I’m going and I’m sorry I can’t help you out too.”  
The Captain nodded grimly. “I understand.”  
The three Avengers eyed each other warily. Even with all the fighting, they had grown to appreciate a friendship that had lasted through rough patches most people could hardly imagine.  
As the world did not revolve around Dr. Bruce Banner, they doubted their existences would cease. But life without him would be . . . well, a little bit sad. They would miss him both at S.H.I.E.L.D. and outside of it.  
Bruce swallowed and stepped forward to the time machine. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll try to return about ten minutes from now . . . I don’t really want to cross my own time stream any more than I have to.”  
“Great idea,” Tony muttered sarcastically. “’S not like that’s what I’ve been telling you for the past few months or anything.”  
Bruce ignored him. “Help me with these straps, Steve?” He held out one side of the limp safety harness, adapted from an old parachute rig. It was just a precaution; you couldn’t be too careful.  
“Yeah, sure.”  
After the two snaps were clicked into place, and Steve had tugged them lightly to test their security, Bruce let out a quiet sigh. “This is one of those last will and testament moments, isn’t it? How people feel when they say final good-byes?”  
“Except you’re not dying, you’re just . . . going away. Forever.” Steve stopped a moment to work out what he had just said.  
“That’s how it’s explained to kids,” Tony said gruffly, crossing his arms stiffly against his chest. “Dying.”  
Steve looked mortified; his face was flushed quite pink. Tony was very, very pale. “You have money, right? And an alias? And IDs?”  
“Yes, Tony. You don’t have to worry about me. You gave me enough cash to last several years. And Natasha got me IDs; drivers license, passport, everything.”  
Tony interjected, “What if you look different? You never know . . .”  
“I’ll compensate. Natasha was _very_ thorough.”  
He seemed unconvinced.  
“She used to do this to stay alive. This was her living, Tony.”  
“Whatever. Just get out of here before something one of us regrets happens.” He turned on one heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind himself. Being made of metal, the sound was no so much the final thunk of wood, but a loud, reverberating crash.  
Steve winced. “He’s just angry. He’s not good at losing people.”  
“No one is.”  
“ . . . No. No they’re not.”  
There was hardly anything left to say, so they simply shook hands. “It was an honor to serve with you, Dr. Banner.”  
“The same, Captain.”  
“I’m sorry that . . .”  
“You didn’t ask to be the soldier you are, here and _now_ , and I didn’t ask for _the other guy_. We’re on even footing, so no apologies necessary, Cap.”  
Steve looked relieved. “What do you need me to do?”  
“Just close the door and put down the latch.”  
Bruce leaned back as he watched the Captain pull the metal lid forward. He paused for a moment, and gave a salute. “I would never wish you a failure, but I hope to see you in ten minutes, Bruce.”  
He had no response to that, only a nod. The Cap closed the door.  
“Dr. Bruce Banner, on July 12, 2013,” Bruce said, speaking into the built in recording device, included for posterity. “The time is 8:45 AM. Hopefully the final experiment, this is time travel attempt number 221. First jump spanning years.”  
His fingers found the button, painted green for the hell of it, and he pressed down hard. There was a rushing noise in his ears and then nothing, as if they were stopped up with cotton.  
He could see very little as his eyes watered under the pressure. It felt like driving on a motorcycle without a helmet or sunglasses as the wind rushed against his face.  
With a shuddering jolt, the capsule stopped, tipping dangerously to the side before righting itself.  
He wriggled his hands free and unsnapped the harness before unlocking the door. Outside was New York City and he was standing in a large vacant lot, between two recently abandoned buildings, scheduled for demolition. It was the future site of Stark Towers.  
He glanced around nervously. No one seemed to have seen him appear . . .  
The most difficult part of the plan yet put into action seemed to be hailing a cab with enough trunk space to hold the time machine. He couldn’t exactly say what it was, and most cabbies drove off after only speaking a couple words to him.  
He groaned in frustration and kicked a pebble along the pavement. He couldn’t very well _leave_ it there. What if something were to happen to it? What if something were to happen to _him_? He needed an escape route.  
It took longer than he wanted, but eventually he hailed down a yellow-painted SUV. He haggled with the cabbie over the trunk space. After a long negotiation, the exchange of currency, and several sentences spoken in Hindi, he agreed. They worked together to shove it in the cab and then Bruce climbed into the back seat.  
Driving in New York City can never be called easy, pleasant, or brisk, but the drive was relatively quick. In any other city what would have been five minutes took only about twenty.  
He spent most of the time staring out the window, taking in every detail. Back home, the city was still a bit beat up from the invasion, but this one was as pristine as ever. The radio played rock music and drowned out any expectation of conversation, for which he was grateful; his mind was too full of what to say to himself.  
It would be nonsense to reach the college any other way than a car of his own. That was the most pressing difficulty in regards to the time machine—it was only a time machine.  
Although renting a car with cash only tends to be suspicious, at best. At least he wasn’t _planning_ on committing any crimes.  
“S—stop. Stop here, please.” Where did that stutter come from? Well, it didn’t matter anyway.  
He got out, paid the driver, and helped remove the time machine. Bruce waited on the curb until the cab had driven off before he turned the capsule to hide it in a conveniently situated alley.

Bruce hadn’t realized how much he missed his old teacher’s spot until he spent, after the six-hour drive down to the college, another thirty minutes circling around, searching for a parking spot. He let out an annoyed puff of air and sucked it up.  
He found a paid spot on the street, just around the corner from the quad. He pulled the time machine out of the back of the car; it was a difficult task on his own. After some tugging, he tipped it on its side and started rolling it across the grass. Culver University proved itself a college when no one gave him a second glance.  
That was something, at least.  
He paused for a moment on the edge of campus before deciding that the woods would be his best option. When building the time machine, he had prepared for just this eventuality and had worked accordingly, building it mostly out of aluminum with iron and copper for support. It rolled nicely and the door latch held firm.  
It wasn’t long before he found an old shed by the lake. Nudging the door open, he found it was mostly empty, the floor almost clean. It was a little difficult, but he lifted the time machine back into an upright position and wiggled it through the opening until it rested nicely against the back wall.  
rom his bag, he removed a lock and key, the final precaution. After tugging the lock on the machine handle to make sure it was closed properly, he threaded the key on a chain and hung it around his neck; it would be safe there.  
With his hands in his pockets, he walked briskly back into view of the school. All that was left was to wait for himself.  
He remembered the day quite vividly. They—Betty and he—had been discussing potential test subjects. They had gone to lunch and . . . well, he didn’t know what had come over him, but he decided to do it, rather than use an animal or especially a volunteer, even.  
She had objected and he had resisted and a week later she was in the hospital and he was on the run. Still, all’s well that ends well and if he could fix the life of his still unharmed counterpart, then everything would turn out all right.  
So he found a bench and sat down to wait.  
Students walked back and forth and he was privy to some of the most trivial conversations he had heard in a long time. Paper due dates and dating and who was who at what party and where all the good fake IDs could be found. He crossed his arms and leaned back. It might be a while . . .  
A girl with blonde hair and a _Lord of the Rings_ t-shirt exited the communications building with a guitar case in one hand. He vaguely remembered her. As he watched, she sat down on the top steps and unlatched the case. After fiddling with the tuners at the top of the neck, she strummed a few chords and whistled a couple bars of a song, before launching into an indie rock song, singing softly.  
Bruce’s eyes drifted and he finally saw himself. Betty was there too, holding his hand. A pencil was stuck behind his other self’s ear and he looked like he could use some sleep, but other than that seemed cheerful enough. He gestured with his hands, illustrating some point about radiation.  
Bruce tensed against the bench and watched them walk together toward their favorite lunch cart, where they went when they didn’t have time to go off campus.  
He hadn’t realized how far his voice could carry, sometimes . . .  
“It’s the best choice! I know what I’m dealing with better than anyone else, and _if_ something goes wrong, I know how to fix it!”  
“It’s a _really_ awful idea, Bruce.”  
“I disagree, but let’s leave it alone for now.”  
They bought their food and spoke more quietly. If he remembered correctly, it was something about how little General Ross liked him, even then. Their order came up and he watched himself pick up the bag. Now or never.  
Bruce jumped to his feet. “Dr. Banner! Dr. Banner, I need to talk to you!”  
The other Bruce looked up, said something to Betty, and gave her the bag. They both watched her walk off.  
“Yes?”  
Bruce’s breath hitched in his chest for just a second and he looked into his own, younger, face. “Don’t do it.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“The experiment. It will fail more horribly than you could ever imagine in this moment and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”  
The other Bruce frowned. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how you could know that. Or how you’re qualified to say such a thing.”  
Bruce shook his head. “You don’t have to trust me. You don’t even have to believe me. Just try it on something other than a human first. Something else, _anything_ else. When you see what happens, tell Nick Fury that you’re on to him. Ross too.”  
“What?”  
“He’ll probably offer you a research position, so think about that, all right? That’d be a good option.”  
“I—I . . .”  
“Just don’t experiment on yourself!” Bruce cried, and turned around, walking away from himself. What a damnable, ignorant fool he had been.  
After walking far enough that he was out of sight of the quad, he stopped to take a breath, leaning against the brick wall of the building. Something didn’t feel right . . . Perhaps it was the after-affects of talking to himself?  
He wondered if the best option would be to take the time machine a week into the future, to check on the destruction. If all looked well, he could continue with his original plan. If it didn’t and there was any news of a giant green monster on the rampage, then maybe he could return home.  
He could probably go back . . .  
After a moment of deliberation, he turned back into the forest.

The other Bruce Banner ran one hand distractedly through his already jumbled hair as he mounted the steps to the science building. Who had that man been and why had he seemed so strikingly familiar?  
Regardless of who he was or where he came from, he brought up a discouragingly excellent point. He could _not_ very well experiment on himself without the thought of all the consequences. If they turned the radiation down, mice would make a possible early test subject . . .  
And who was this Nick Fury? Hadn’t he been mentioned in one of the reports Ross had written? It was really only a vague memory. After their success, maybe he would ask.  
Betty looked up from the desk. “Who was that?”  
The other Bruce shrugged. “No one important, I guess. Just had a couple of questions. But you know what, you’re right. It was a stupid idea.”  
She smiled brightly. “Good. One less thing to worry about, then.”  
And just like that, the incredible Hulk, Mr. Green, was never born.


	2. The Avengers, or The Heart of the Matter (Act 2, Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce Banner has gotten his wish and gone back in time. There is no Hulk in this timeline, incredible or otherwise. In fact, it seems like the Alternate!Bruce is gaining all his goals in life, as if Original!Bruce is some sort of time traveling, wish granting fairy with an anger management problem.
> 
> So what could possibly be wrong with that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even kidding, you guys have no idea how many times through in a loop I watched this movie to get the fight scenes right for this act.

“This really is a very odd moment . . .” Dr. Bruce Banner said to himself as he straightened his tie in the mirror. Crashing a wedding was one thing, but when it was your _own_ . . . He felt a bit like he was channeling Tony Stark.  
Actually, he was pretty sure Tony would be there. Iron Man and the other Bruce had met several months previously; he had been asked by both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries to become involved in further production of the Arc Reactor.  
At least he wasn’t assigned to the Tesseract station. Bruce knew what was coming there and wished he could warn Clint. The pity was no one knew he existed, and he had to keep it that way.  
He sighed, smoothed one hand down the blue fabric, and walked out of the apartment, locking the door behind him.  
It was 2010 and Bruce had been living in his own created universe for about four years. Everything he had missed in his old life, the other Bruce succeeded at. After coming to his senses and _not_ experimenting on himself, he had met Director Fury. Instead of like the first time when Bruce had met him, in a bar, and driven to an _incident_ , the other Bruce and the Director had actually formed an interesting friendship, which was why his expertise had been brought to compliment Tony’s ideas.  
The good part of that was that the wedding was surprisingly big. Even when Bruce showed up uninvited, as he acted like he knew what he was doing, they let him right through the doors. _Definitely_ channeling Tony.  
Inside, people were milling around, talking before the ceremony. He spotted General Ross and moved in the opposite direction, passing by Tony and Pepper as he did, although he didn’t stop to talk. In the far left corner he also caught a glimpse of Erik Selvig. Bruce rubbed his forehead with one hand. This had been a bad idea. He couldn’t say a word to anyone without feeling guilty or even possibly being recognized. Knowing the future is not something to enjoy.  
“This was a _very_ bad idea,” he muttered.  
“Weddings usually are.”  
Bruce jumped. He hadn’t notice Tony sidle up next to him, a glass of Champagne in his hand. “But hey, they don’t usually limit how much you drink, and Pepper likes to be sentimental.” He smiled. “Tony Stark.”  
“I know.”  
He grinned wider, looking self-satisfied. “Everyone usually does.”  
Bruce noticed Tony didn’t ask for a name. He rarely did.  
“How do you know them, then? Coworker, friend, acquaintance, friendly neighborhood stalker?”  
Bruce let out a slightly clipped laugh. Tony was a bit closer than he realized. “An old friend. We’ve been out of touch, but I looked him up recently. Found myself here.”  
“Sounds nice.”  
Boring people don’t interest Tony Stark, and Bruce found his alter ego to be one of them. He turned away to save Tony the trouble, before he let himself realize how much he missed his friends.  
It had been four years of a different life, but it was also getting lonely, just like Brazil and Russia and Pakistan and India and everywhere else he had run to, it always came back to the same years. It didn’t matter what life he lived, they proved to be lonely.  
Someday, maybe, he could let himself go—his other self—and live for real somewhere. Maybe go to a faraway state and find himself a teaching position.  
But not quite yet. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier was possibly bigger than he even remembered. Just like the day he decided to perform the experiment on himself, it was easy to recall the date of Loki’s invasion of Earth. All that was left to do was find a nice job as one of the hundred or so agents on computers at the time . . .  
It hadn’t been hard to fake some credentials.  
He sat down at the desk he had been assigned and prepared to wait. It wasn’t really all that long. Early in the morning—past midnight, but still pitch black outside the window—he was shaken roughly awake. Bruce dressed and stumbled to his position.  
So this was how they saw the beginning, then. The loss of the Tesseract. He sat quietly and did as he was told. It wasn’t long before the Director’s voice could be heard quite easily through most of the helicarrier, yelling about Loki and Clint. “No, no leave me alone. I am _not_ the one you need to be worried about.  
“But Director! You were shot in the chest and then you jumped out of a helicopter!”  
“And I was wearing a vest. I was _trained_ for this. Leave me alone and go worry about someone who was actually injured.” He swatted a woman away and kept walking. “Coulson?”  
“Yes, sir?”  
“Call in Romanov. I’ve gotta stop in New York for the Cap. You take Stark.”  
Coulson grimaced. “Okay.”  
“Tell him to bring Banner. We’re gonna need him on this.”  
That was . . . a little bit surprising. But even in this universe, Bruce supposed his other self was still a radiation expert.  
Looking around, from what he could see of the other agents, it promised to be a long night. He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up; it was Coulson. “I need a number. One of the Stark Industry techs—Dr. Bruce Banner.”  
Well then. Was he supposed to say sir? The whole situation was complicated. Best to be safe, though. “Yes, sir.” With a few keystrokes, he pulled up a younger picture of himself. Through all that time, one of the strangest things for him had been the difference in aging. Bruce had looked several years older than the other Bruce at the same time in his original time stream. He shoved his chair out of the way for Coulson to see. “Here.”  
Coulson dialed and turned away. “Dr. Banner? I hope you didn’t have any plans for this week. S.H.I.E.L.D. needs you to come in on something. Yes, we’ll send someone along to pick you up.” He nodded to himself, hung up the phone, and dialed a new number. “We need you to come in.” A pause. “Barton’s been compromised.”  
He moved away, listening for something on the other end of the phone.  
Bruce nervously tapped a pencil against the desk. So far, things seemed very similar to the first time.  
When it was all over, he promised himself, he could go away in peace. They would both be able to live their separate lives. “Someday . . .” he sighed.  
The technicians worked on shifts and he was honestly surprised at his luck as his break ended up falling at the same time the helicarrier landed in the water. Taking his chance, he slipped up to the top deck to get some fresh air before they went up again.  
As he watched, a helicopter and a plane landed. Steve jumped out of one with Coulson while, as he watched, the other Bruce exited the other one with Natasha. He shook hands with the Cap and they spoke quietly for a minute before the signal was given to get everyone off the top deck.  
He got off the deck, but instead of returning to his post, as he knew should have, he wandered restlessly through some of the lower levels of this ship, guided by half-formed bad memories. The other guy wasn’t big on visuals.  
If everything went accordingly, Loki would show up in about 24 hours, he reasoned, trying to work it all out. The Cap had left sometime in the night for Germany, after the software had locked onto the god’s image.  
All that was left to do was to hide out while they did the fighting . . .

“What do you mean, he _escaped_?” Director Fury thundered, rounding angrily on the three men. Tony’s arms were crossed tightly against his chest and Thor looked affronted. Steve merely looked bitter and a bit cowed. “You had him in the plane—cuffed!”  
“The big guy’s the one who fell out of the sky on us.”  
“I don’t care whose fault you think it is, the blame belongs to everyone. _You too, Romanov_ ,” he added sharply. “Don’t act like I can’t see you trying to sneak away.”  
“Sir, I was—“  
“No fucking excuses. I don’t want excuses from anyone, all I want are _results_. So go find him again.”  
“Well, _he_ knows how to handle a temper,” Tony muttered, pulling off his gloves and throwing them on the table next to his helmet. “I’m going to go do something productive. Like help Bruce look for that stupid box.”  
Thor turned away and walked toward the windows. “I have never been in a flying room before.”  
“They’re just something you have to get used to, I guess.” Steve shrugged and stood next to the god. “I hope our next plan works out better than that one did.”  
The Asgardian shook his head. “I do not understand my brother’s motives. If he simply returned home, he would be welcomed back with relief, yet he continues with this madness.”  
“Sometimes there are people who just don’t think right.”  
“Yet he is still my brother! Be careful how you speak.”  
“He’s killed about eighty people in the last couple days.”  
“He _was_ adopted . . .”  
“ . . . _Right_.”  
Bruce stayed back where he was, as confused as he was by the proceedings, knowing he could do nothing. This was _not_ how it had played out the first time. What was Loki’s game? The first time he had let himself be caught. This time, he had escaped.  
Bruce thought for a moment. Well, there wasn’t a Hulk to unleash this time. Perhaps that was the matter with the plan? Everything would right itself in the Battle of New York. He believed heartily in _that_ at the very least.  
With no other options open to him, none that would do any good, Bruce returned to his assigned computer. Agent Hill was arguing with someone, loud and distracting. The computer asked him for something and he typed without thinking.  
It brought up a video screen—the other Bruce and Tony, talking in the lab. So they _had_ been watched.  
The two were working smoothly together, more like the time that he had left and less like the Battle of New York, but that was just another of the benefits his doppelganger received. He noticed they did, however, have the staff. There was time yet to right the timeline.  
When Loki was captive, it had been about a day for the rescue mission to occur. There was no Loki to rescue now, but . . . He wouldn’t be going far without his spear.  
Bruce tapped his fingers and watched the screen.  
“Something wrong?” Coulson again.  
“No . . . not _really_. But . . . I don’t like it. Don’t like that we have Loki’s . . . stick thing,” he added in response to Coulson’s questioning gaze. “He’s going to come after it.”  
The agent nodded. “Most likely. We’ll be ready when he does, though.”  
 _I hope so_. “Yes, sir.”  
After being relieved of duty for the day, he tried to sleep, failed, and tossed and turned most of the night. Sometimes, the worst part about knowing the future is _knowing_ it. It was only an approximate knowledge even to begin with, so how was he to know how the attack would work out. For all he knew, they would fall into the ocean and die. That would be the end of his glorious plan to fix everything.  
He spent the day in nervous anticipation of the attack, looking out the window every five minutes to scan for an incoming plane. But he was gladder to be wrong than he ever had been in his life, except for the one time when he denounced the Avengers as a working team. They _were_ prepared. More than they had even in the original timeline, with no Loki messing with their heads from a glass prison—meant for him.  
Bruce was even surprised to find himself in just the right spot to pull Clint’s arrow from the computer just a couple seconds after it clicked in place. The virus transfer didn’t complete and all it took was a few lines of code to kill the beast and save the engine.  
Tony and Steve still had to run off and fix the failing engine. Bruce knew that was one of the things that had solidified their friendship to begin with, so even with the bumping of the helicarrier, he was all right with that.  
Inside there was less distraction without a Hulk rampaging the lower levels, trying to kill some of the most valuable agents. She still saved Clint, though, knocking him cold in the middle of the hallway. Even with Thor giving his full attention to the intruders, however, they still managed to make off with Loki’s scepter. That’s what they had been chosen for, after all.  
Except the problem was, it was all a distraction. Not like the first time, when Loki escaped while Dr. Selvig had time to set the machine up; this time, it was a distraction to keep S.H.I.E.L.D.’s attention long enough to open the portal.  
Two of the leviathan creatures along with a couple squadrons of Chitauri had already peeled off the mass and swooped down the East coast to attack Washington DC. Bruce watched the screen with somewhat numb horror. They hadn’t thought of that _last_ time.  
Not necessarily through force of will so much as force of fear, half the cities on the Eastern seaboard were out of commission. Roads were clogged up and news stations had actually shut down, panicking themselves. By the time they lost their eyes in New York, Tony had already flown off and Steve, Clint, Natasha, and Thor had commandeered a jet for their own transportation.  
Bruce watched through the front windows what he had missed the first time, after falling out of the air and onto the roof of a warehouse. At least he got to skip sequence of events.  
Fury returned to the bridge, his coat billowing around him. “Take us down. They might not want us, but we’re gonna help them out anyway.”  
A swarm of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in New York City, trying to do what the Avengers had done once before in a different timeline. It didn’t seem promising.


	3. The Avengers, or The Heart of the Matter (Act 2, part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Chitauri attack New York City, Bruce Banner realizes how completely idiotic he's been. Changing the time line is never a good idea and he learns it the hard way, as the world crashes down and burns around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am _soooooo_ sorry you guys.  
>  If anyone is still hanging around to read this, everything will be posted now or in a couple days. I don't have that much fan fiction saved up, but I will try to work on the stuff I left hanging.  
> It's been a damn crazy year. I'm gonna be honest here, it might actually be easier for me to write fan fics and novels when I'm in college.
> 
> And actually, I was thinking maybe I'll do this piece for Script Frenzy in April? I've wanted to adapt it into a script since I wrote it anyway.

“This is crazy!” Tony yelled into his helmet. It reverberated through the ear buds of his colleagues, almost all of them ground-bound and fighting with fists and guns and bows and _conventional_ weapons.  
“Oh, really, ya’ think?” Steve asked scathingly as he deflected a Chitauri’s blast back into the alien’s face. It squirted sticky blue fluid and fell back to the pavement. “I hadn’t noticed in the slightest.”  
“Stop fighting you two,” Natasha complained, shooting two of the creatures in the head with simultaneous bursts from her guns. It didn’t matter, though, how many they took down. They just _kept coming_ , streaming out of the portal by the hundreds.  
“We need higher ground,” Steve cried, ducking an attack and striking back with a quick punch to the stomach and another in the chin. “We need to stagger ourselves—it just doesn’t do enough good to have us _all_ right here.”  
“I can give someone a lift,” Tony offered. He swooped around the side of a building and headed down in their direction.  
“Barton, take a rooftop.”  
“You got it, Cap.”  
Tony grabbed the archer under his arms and lifted him away from the rest of the group. “Have fun.”  
Natasha ducked under a Chitauri’s arm and shot it in the back. “We’ve got to get these people out of here, Cap.” They could see inside the windows of cafés and office buildings, faces pressed against the glass, watching in horror.  
“I know, I know, I know . . .” he muttered, tossing his shield in a wide arc. His eyes darted around, overlaying the carnage with the street maps in his mind. “Down. We need them to go down. Can you hold this? I’m going to find some officers to help with the crowds.”  
“Go, Captain. We can manage,” Thor declared.  
He ran off down the street, using cars to increase his momentum. Broken windshields crunched under his boots. He was already covered in grime and dirt and blue alien blood.  
Thor was looking for an edge. “When he returns, it would be beneficial for me to reach the clouds to create a storm.”  
“I can’t hold this alone!”  
“When he returns!”  
“Yeah”— _bang, bang, bang_ —“okay.”  
It wasn’t an ideal spot, but there were enough taller buildings in the way to give Clint some measure of cover. He shot three arrows in quick succession and then used his bow to sever the link between the second Chitauri on the transporter and watched it fall with grim satisfaction.  
Five more were coming at him, spreading out and moving towards him in a semicircle, closing in. He shot two arrows, exploding one of the vehicles out of the air and killing the driver of the second. He shot once more and a third veered wildly off course.  
Twisting, he reached for another arrow, but his hand found none. His heart beat wildly as he ran across the roof and yanked the final arrow out of the body of a dead Chitauri. He dropped it into the quiver and let it click into a bomb tip. Clint pulled it out and shot it, but there was still one set left, flying towards him.  
He reached again on reflex. There was nothing there. The wind roared in his ears. What was left to say into the ear bud to tell the rest of them? “ . . . Well, fuck.”  
He stumbled back a step, then another, his fingers slick around the bow.  
The aliens didn’t even stop their vehicle as they swooped forward and dived. The passenger reached out with his spear, barely even looking, as the agent’s head was sliced clean off.  
The vehicle rose up and over the rooftops, blood staining the metal.  
The Cap ran with his head down, using his shield as cover, ducking around the metal wrecks of cars. There were only so many people he could save in the amount of time he had. He jumped over a seat, ripped from a car, and used the continuation of his movement to hit an alien with his shield. “Did anyone else hear that noise?”  
“What noise?”  
“I don’t know. But it sounded like Clint was in tight spot.”  
Although he resented the implication that he was being _ordered_ , Tony said, “All right, I’ll go check it out.”  
He ducked and dove, fast enough with the power to cause two sets of Chitauri to crash head on into each other before he shot upward and dove left, looping around a couple buildings to search for Agent Barton.  
Windows flashed by so fast that he missed the rooftop and had to backtrack, searching for the arrow-shooting, black clad figure. He stopped, hovering in the air.  
“Sir, it’s not recommended to stay in one place for so long,” JARVIS stated.  
All he could hear was a _thump, thump, thump_ in his ears.  
“Tony, _talk to us_ ,” Steve yelled, pulling Natasha down as they ducked from a blast as Thor’s hammer destroyed the engine and sent four or five Chitauri flying, half of them flaming.  
An air current hit him and he stumbled onto the roof. Tony pulled off the face mask and took a couple gulps of fresh air. “He’s dead. Barton’s dead, Captain.” Natasha let out a cry, but her fighting abilities, if anything, seemed to increase in power.  
Tony swallowed and looked around the rooftop. Blood had spurted everywhere and the agent’s head was lying half a foot away from the rest of the body, his sunglasses askew, his bow half held in one outstretched hand. Feeling shaky, Tony shoved the mask back on, grabbed the bow, slung it across one shoulder, and took a running leap off the edge of the tower. “I’m headed back to you guys.”  
He landed a minute later as they gained a short respite from the attack. Thor gripped his hammer tightly and Steve was wiping up his bleeding cheek. Natasha leaned breathlessly against a wall, both her fists clenched as she glared at the ground with eyes that sparkled with unshed tears.  
“Romanov, catch.” Tony tossed the bow and she grabbed it out of the air, wiping one hand under her eye.  
“ . . .Thanks.”  
Death made it real, somehow. Realer. Out of a haze-induced mad dashing fight into cold, numb reality. People were _dying_.  
Steve secured the shield on his arm, making a fist. “C’mon. Let’s finish this.”  
Another voice popped across the ear bud feed, belonging to Fury. “I’m sending agents in. Tell us where you need us.”  
The Avengers glanced, surprised, at each other. “There are still too many civilians in the city. Everyone you can, get them on that.”  
“Understood, Cap.”  
“Let’s get going.”  
Tony took off and Thor, using his hammer, flew off to find a building to cling to and summon thunder. He gripped the metal beam on the top of a tower and reached out his hammer, yelling a battle cry, mostly because he was Thor. Using the new charge, he directed the energy towards several Chitauri, knocking them out of the sky. He yelled again. This was what he lived for, it sometimes seemed like. Even gods can be adrenaline junkies, and Thor was the worst of the lot.  
He called another bolt of thunder and jumped onto the back of one of the passing Leviathans. The Chitauri swarmed and he whooped, spinning in a circle and crushing them with his hammer.  
As he lifted his hammer for more electricity, his legs were knocked out from beneath him by a plasma blast, shot from a weapon. To a god, it was only a minor injury, but from such a precarious position, it sent him tumbling backwards.  
He pin wheeled his arms, reflexively searching for a desperate hold on something, _anything_.  
His hands found a Chitauri vehicle and he latched on, grabbing at the chain that connected the second one to its post. It roared in pain and twisted in his grasp, dragging him upward against with surprising force and strength. The alien grabbed Thor’s cape, choking the god and his hands swung wildly.  
Thor cried out, accidentally ripping the tether. He fell, hard, onto the platform of the vehicle, dropping plates of armor from his forearms like a shedding cat. He had lost enough to impale himself on a spike of metal, sticking out from the floor.  
The driver sped up quickly and pulled a loop, dropping the god another couple hundred feet, directly onto a passing craft. In the drop, however, he had time to draw one last bolt of lighting into his hammer. As he fell directly onto the spear of the creature below, his weapon spit flames and wattage, enough to fry the two Chitauri in their armor.  
He grinned as he coughed and choked up the last few ounces of blood.

Bruce’s mind was in chaos. _Nothing_ was supposed to go this way! Clint, dead. No, no, no. He remembered back to his first trip in the time machine. Natasha had given him his fake IDs, wished him luck. Clint had shaken his hand.  
Clint wasn’t _dead_. How could he be?  
Bruce realized, belatedly, that he had never suffered a helicarrier landing before. The jolt into the water was enough to knock a bit of sense back into his brain.  
It might be best, he decided, if he told his other self the truth. Confessed. Maybe he could go back to the college and fix everything, take the time machine back again. There was madness brewing in the air and it felt like everyone had come down with a bad case of Loki.  
Coulson, Hill, and Fury directed agents as they took planes, helicopters, and little boats into the city. He saw the other Bruce, being loaded onto a lifeboat. It was too late by then to catch up, so he settled for a helicopter. On the way out, he swiped an earpiece, vowing to himself to keep absolutely silent until necessity broke his promise. At least he could learn first hand what was happening.  
“God help me,” he muttered, as he stuck the flesh-colored electronic and plastic into his ear.  
Steve’s voice flooded his head, soldier mode turned up to eleven, loud and commanding. That was something familiar, at least.  
Fury said, “Cap, we’re sending Dr. Banner over to an empty building with his equipment. We’re gonna see if he can interrupt the Tesseract’s frequencies. Be on stand by.”  
“Right, Director.” There came a clang of metal on stone. More fighting, Bruce presumed.  
The chopper landed and he jumped out, a satchel slung over one shoulder. He realized that if he _acted_ like he knew what he was doing, most people wouldn’t question him. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. really was due for an update in the security department.  
After a couple wrong turns, using only chatter over the headset frequencies for guidance, he found the right building. From the sidewalk, he saw the other Bruce inside, typing madly away on a laptop. Bruce hung back, resting one hand against the stone pillar outside the building directly across the street.  
The only question was, how do you tell yourself all the mistakes you’ve made?  
He watched Fury dash out the front doors, drawing a pistol as he did. He obviously had somewhere to go, probably reinforcements for other agents.  
Something caught in Bruce’s chest. What had he _done_? The insanity had to end somehow. Clint’s death was on _him_.  
His hands were shaking so badly that he felt himself slip against the pillar. There were no excuses for his actions. When he returned home, he would be Tony’s greatest champion for the anti-time travel campaign.  
And speaking of Tony, there he was, once again. Always at the right time, it seemed . . . “Fury, you gotta give me an address for Bruce! I injured a Leviathan pretty badly, but it’s still flying. Gettin’ kinda close for comfort to that area, if you know what I mean?”  
Fury shouted a street and number out, barked and commanding. “Deal with it, Stark.”  
“You got it.”  
Bruce shuddered. He could see it coming, too, flying down the street, writhing in agony, its tail thrashing, like it was drunk. It knocked into buildings, destroying several floors at a time. Of course its trajectory was directly towards the building his other self was working inside.  
Maybe it was some sort of cosmic, karma thing. All he could do was watch helplessly as his other self worked to shut down the portal, all but oblivious to his impending doom.  
Overly dramatic, but Bruce’s state of mind was not necessarily all that functional at the time. The electric and organic beast was coming quickly closer. Crushed bricks fell against the street, needlessly setting off a cacophony of car alarms.  
Tony’s voice came back over the system. “This doesn’t look good . . . _Hey, Bruce_!” he screamed suddenly. “Bruce, I swear to God, if you’re on the system, _fucking answer me_!” Only silence answered him through the cloud. “Must have taken his piece out . . . Cap, I’m going in to get him.”  
“Be careful, Stark.”  
The only sound came from Tony flying full power across the city.  
Bruce realized he wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing. However, he knew enough not to Hulk out right there and then. It would do far more harm than good. As difficult as it was, he worked on his breathing. If he could get his heart rate down enough, when the inevitable happened, maybe it wouldn’t end with _complete_ disaster.  
Tony probably wasn’t going to make it in time, Bruce feared. However, there was a rush of air overhead and Tony burst through the window across the street, showering the road in a rainbow of broken glass.  
Bruce watched with horrified fascination as the other Bruce jumped to his feet, reaching for the laptop.  
“There’s no _ti_ —” he heard Tony begin to shout just as the beast crashed against the lower part of the building, shattering windows and bending metal structural beams like clay. The floor rocked and bucked beneath the two men as building material rained like hail. Bruce lost sight of his other self, but he witnessed with horror as Tony attempted to rise up, only to be crushed by a falling metal beam. “Augh!”  
“Sir, the beam seems . . . t—t—o . . . b . . .” JARVIS cut off with a low grumbling noise as the metal crushed and sliced the many hundred wires keeping Tony Stark alive, well, and fighting.  
Bruce jumped back a half foot as bricks clattered down against the pavement. A few landed at his feet.  
Enough of them fell onto the Leviathan to put it out of its misery, but the damage was already done. Forgetting himself for a moment, Bruce stumbled across the street, tripping on chunks of brick and plaster. “Tony!” he yelled. Luckily for him—the only lucky thing that entire day—it was at almost the precise moment that everyone else did, too. He was safe, drowned out in the noise of other voices.  
In times of mortal peril, a first name basis is always acceptable.  
Bruce slipped on something hard and round—probably a pipe—and fell, scraping his hands painfully against the road. He gasped and scrambled back on his knees as he found himself almost literally face to face with his own corpse. He rocked back on his knees and struggled to his feet, listening to the pounding in his ears.  
Breathing through his mouth, he began a hurried search through the layers of rubble, mostly ignoring the panicked chatter that bubbled out of the com in his ear. He tore a large chunk out of place and tumbled out of the way as he accidentally caused a mini avalanche.  
The movement revealed metal fingers. Tony’s limp hand, with all the gold and red paint scratched off the suit.  
“ . . . Sorry. I’m so sorry, Tony. I should’ve listened to you. _You warned me_. But don’t worry. I know what to do now.” Bruce jumped to his feet as he heard footsteps. Agents, sent by Fury, to clear up, find out if they were dead or only injured. He turned down the street and ran madly, his bag thumping softly against his back. Being detained by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents was not part of his plan to fix the world.


	4. The Avengers, or The Heart of the Matter (Act 2, part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The havoc in New York continues and it seems no one is safe.  
> Will Bruce manage to find someone who will listen to what he has to say in time? Will He be _able_ to fix the mess he's made?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might recommend listening to "Hate to See Your Heart Break" by Paramore while listening to this section. I was on kind of a kick when I wrote this, and I'm pretty sure that's the song I played on loop while writing most of this section.

The god Loki Laufeyson walked slowly along the street. After he had watched the injured Leviathan destroy a building, he decided it would be somewhat safer on the ground.  
He walked down the sidewalk, stepping over and around bodies, car parts, and dead Chitauri, turned a corner, and continued keeping a wary eye out for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or the Avengers—or especially his brother.  
While looking around, he caught sight of the trees and found himself laughing. Midgardians were such _strange_ creatures, killing all of like but that which they allowed to grow. Even then, it could not thrive without their permission. Claiming freedom when there were so many rules was nonsense of the country. The only freedom was in the knowledge and ability to recognize the truth. When you accepted inevitability, life became all the easier.  
The trees were still nagging at him. They were thing saplings, barely taller than he, no more than two years old. Maybe when they took the country, he would raze the shining beacon of humanity that was New York City and replace it with a hundred acres of trees. How would that make them feel _then_? The thought was rather appealing.  
His grin slowly slipped. What was that, caught in the tree? Reaching up, he dislodged the ripped red fabric, long and soft, torn through in two long gashes and bloodstained. He draped it over one arm and tried to drown the implications.  
It became much more difficult to do so on the next block.  
Several dead Chitauri and two half-destroyed vehicles were lying on the ground. Something about that scene was different than what he had seen of the others, however.  
After a couple of steps forward, he realized why—they were covered in electrical burns, the likes of which he had seen inflicted only by—“Thor,” he groaned.  
He stopped in front of the pile of dead and shoved the Chitauri out of the way. Thor had landed on his side, his face turned in the other direction, his helmet askew but completely undented. His hammer was a few feet away in the middle of a large crater. Loki didn’t even attempt to reach for it.  
He rolled Thor’s body onto his back. He looked . . . calm. Peaceful. That was a far away, unattainable thought for Loki.  
He sank to the ground and kneeled down next to the body, his brother’s cape draped across his lap. Tentatively, he reached out to touch the god. He didn’t even twitch.  
Loki’s hand came away scarlet and shining.  
“ . . .Thor?”  
The dead can’t answer. Without noticing the blood, Loki rested his face against his hand, as he recognized with sudden clarity every mistake he had made. Thor was the only person left in the world who would hold strong for his side, even when they fought. It wasn’t a question of sentimentality to want him back, if he continued to lie to himself. However, as a brother, it was a different matter entirely. They had grown up together and they had the same father, even if Loki refused to admit to the facts.  
They had lied to him for his entire life, and he had prowled inside the bars of a cage he couldn’t see. Knowledge broke, not the bars, but the invisible barrier that obstructed his view.  
True freedom is bitter and tangy, the sharpness of metal in your mouth. True freedom is the absence of lies and the acceptance of captivity. The Tessaract held him in a vice-like grip, squeezing his life away. However . . . since the first time he had learned of his true heritage, he found his mind clearing a path through the debris that had cluttered his thoughts for too long.  
He reached out, touching his brother’s wounds once again, smearing blood across his hands and sleeves and arms and not caring at all.  
The only freedom is gained through truth and knowledge and a little bit of sacrifice and a lot of mistakes. Sometimes the lies are only there to protect you.  
 _You are only as free as you think you are_.

“ _Duck_!” Steve yelled to Natasha as he dove for cover behind a car. Several blasts from the Chitauri weapons shot above their heads. They were on a bridge, searching for an edge. It was tough going without Tony and Clint. Thor had simply disappeared after he went off on his own, following his refusal to wear an earpiece.  
The Cap tossed his shield and caught it again, just in time to deflect another plasma bolt.  
Natasha knelt on the ground and reloaded both her pistols. “This isn’t looking good, Cap.” Clint’s bow was sitting by her feet. Every time they moved position, she took it with her, damn the inefficiencies.  
“No, no it’s not. Aaah!” he cried as he ducked his head just in time to miss another shot. Staying still in one place for too long was deadly.  
“ _Captain_!” a voice screamed from the other side of the bridge, clear of the aliens. Natasha let off two shots, leaving the Cap clear to whirl around. A man wearing a brown shoulder bag came running up to them, breathing heavily and covered in dust and dirt.  
“ . . . Dr. Banner? How did you survive?”  
“Didn’t need to. Wasn’t in the building.” He sank down behind a car, grabbing a stitch in his side. New York is a big city to run through.  
“Excuse me?”  
“He was. I wasn’t. Long story, Cap.”  
“I think _I’d_ like an explanation,” Natasha hissed furiously, smoothly switching places with the Captain. He returned to fighting and she took over the interrogation.  
“Dr. Bruce Banner. From the future. Er, ish. Futurish. Couple months.”  
“ _Explain_.”  
 _Switch_.  
He looked up at the Captain, his eyes shining with adrenaline and fear and anger. “You really don’t know me, do you, Cap?”  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”  
“I’m going to fix everything.”  
“And how do you plan on doing _that_?”  
“By going back and stopping it.”  
“You’re going to stop Loki?”  
“No, I’m going to stop myself.”  
 _Switch_.  
“Come again?” Natasha shoved tangled locks behind her ears to stare viciously at the doctor.  
“I can’t get into it right now. Long story, I said. Meet up with Fury. I’ll tell you everything then, all right?”  
She shoved one hand to her ear, pressing down on the bug. “Did you hear that, Director?”  
“Loud and clear, Romanov. I’ll finish up here and we can set a rendezvous point.”  
“Cap?”  
“Got—” _BAM_.  
“STEVE!”  
He had lost his shield in an attempt to deflect a previous shot and the Chitauri took their chance, shooting him point blank in the torso with their plasma weapons, the bolt ripping through his body like so much paper, the black body outline at a target range. He fell back against the car, dead in a second or less but still gushing blood, gallons of blood from the spot where his heart had been.  
Natasha whipped into action, not even stopping long enough for Bruce to process the moment. She spun and whirled and twirled, graceful as any dancer, a thousand times more deadly. Bullets flew and soon a circle of dead Chitauri surrounded her. They held the bridge but Captain America was dead. What was the worth of a bridge?  
She gasped for air and Bruce slowly regained control in his hands, trembling so much it was difficult to wipe the blood specks off his face and glasses, blue Chitauri and red human, mingled in a mocking parody of the Captain’s costume and everything he stood for.  
“You’re a fucking time traveler?”  
“Y—yes.”  
“Then you’d _better_ be able to fix this.”  
“You know, I think I want that too . . .”  
Natasha jerked around and let out a shriek.  
Loki ducked, Thor’s cape still half-draped across his shoulders. “D—don’t kill me.” He fell to his knees.  
Bruce stood tentatively and inched forward. Natasha was holding her pistol in one hand, pointed outward and rock steady, the other limp at her side. Her knuckles were white and shaking as she stood over the kneeling man.  
His head was bowed, with no helmet on, his black hair disarrayed and disheveled, his arms bloodied up to the elbows. Not his blood. But . . . not from an act of violence, either. There was no way other than a gut feeling that Bruce just _knew_.  
“How much more red do you want in your ledger, Natasha?”  
She rounded on him, quick as a whip. “ _How do you know about that_?”  
“Time travel, I told you. You can’t kill Loki. He’s completely at your mercy and that’s just as bad as anything you could do.” Bruce stared at the god, and the god stared back with wide, dread-filled eyes.  
He didn’t think he recognized this Loki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _murder_.  
>  That is all.  
> I'm hardly even ashamed of myself.
> 
>  
> 
> ....Well, maybe just a little.


	5. Loki and Natasha (Act 3, part 1)

“Stop, stop, _stop_ ,” Fury yelled, throwing an arm around Natasha to stop her from attacking Loki. Coulson had cuffed the god and he held Loki’s arm in a tight grip.  
Bruce stood back, leaning against a car. They were almost twenty feet below the city, taking cover from the battle raging—no, not raging. Not anymore. All but one of the Avengers were dead. (Two, if you counted Bruce. Fury did not.) The battle limped along between the agents and aliens, throwing its weight heavily to the non-human side.  
Even if Loki had given up of his own free will, offered no resistance to being restrained, Fury didn’t like it. However, he needed to figure something out, and soon, or there would be no way to save the country. As troublesome as it was, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and Loki was just the birthday present he had been waiting for.  
He wasn’t quite as grimy as the rest of them, but he had more blood on him. He claimed it was Thor’s and had brought the cloak to back his story up, also taking the defense he had not committed the murder. That part remained to be seen.  
And who was the new man, an older version of Dr. Banner without a wedding ring and a hundred insane explanations and excuses and too much information already in his head?  
“Calm down, agent.”  
“He killed Clint!”  
“He did not. His actions caused Agent Barton’s death, _not_ his hands. There's a different precedent for that.”  
She gripped Clint’s bow tightly in both hands, a security blanket for a frightened child, out of her depths in the world, and refused to cry.  
“You told the Cap something about fixing things?”  
“Yes, Director.”  
“Care to elaborate, doctor?”  
Bruce looked up from the ground. “ . . . At Culver university, in a shed by the lake, is where my time machine is hidden. If I can just get out there, I can stop myself from, well, stopping myself.”  
Quizzical looks greeted him all around, except for from Loki, who didn’t seem to care much about anything; he was staring at the floor, holding Thor’s cape in his hands. Bruce sighed and gave them a quick run down of the events that occurred in the _original_ Battle of New York.  
Natasha stared at him, obviously shaken. “We all lived? Everyone?”  
“Yes. We won.”  
“And through all that . . .” She hung her head. “So it’s not so hopeless after all?”  
“No.”  
Coulson looked conflicted. Despite his reluctance to move, the agent was still keeping hold of Loki. In his free hand he held on to the Captain’s shield. “Director, we should let them go.”  
Fury nodded slowly. “I agree. It’s too dangerous to fly—they’ll notice you in a second.”  
Bruce flinched. “We have to get all the way to Virginia over land?”  
“Isn’t that what I just said?” The Director obviously had no patience with anyone that day. “It’s only six hours.”  
Natasha coughed. “Fine. But _I’m_ driving, dammit.” Bruce didn’t really want to argue with her.  
“I . . . I’d rather like to come.” Loki’s voice was horse and raw. Everyone looked at him and after a moment of silence, he raised his eyes from the floor. “I didn’t expect anyone to argue this is my fault . . .”  
“You’re damn right, Loki. It _is_ your fault.”  
“So the least I could do would be to make amends by coming along to fix this . . .”  
Fury looked unconvinced. “You caused this mess in the time that he’s from too.” He gestured at Bruce.  
“ . . . But I didn’t kill everyone doing it, did I?”  
They all looked at Bruce. “Er, no. Not really.”  
“Then I believe I should come.”  
There wasn’t really a response to that, so they let it slide. He jingled the chains of the handcuffs but didn’t mention them until, suddenly, “I believe these are yours, agent.” He handed the metal bracelets back to Agent Coulson.  
He scowled. “Thanks.” Bruce hid a grin. Last time they had interacted, Coulson had died. Or something. Except not really, but no one needed to know that.  
Fury peeked around the corner, covering their ascent to the street. He purposely ignored the fact that Loki was now free, but Natasha glowered. Bruce was having difficulties deciding if he wanted to ignore the god or ask him questions that he’d never been given the answer to. He compromised by walking behind and remaining quite silent.  
There were two trucks with S.H.I.E.L.D. logos painted on the fronts waiting outside, having weaved and carved a path through the empty streets. Fury pulled the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Natasha. “Be careful, Romanov.”  
“I’ll try, Director.” No one could answer that comment with any definite answers anymore. Tony’s answer to the Cap’s command still weighed on them.  
“Good luck, all of you.” His gaze lingered on Loki for a second longer. Loki nodded, a tiny dip of the head. An understanding passed between the two men; this was, perhaps the only time they would work on the same side. Maybe when everything was returned to its rightful place, there would be another chance. But that moment was an anomaly in the timeline and it was something to respect.  
He used the door frame to lever himself into the vehicle and closed the door behind. Bruce climbed into the passenger seat and Natasha went around to sit behind the wheel. They weren’t the kind of people to _wave_. The motor started and that was that, just driving off, no fanfare, no speeches. (At least not aloud.)  
“This really better work, Banner . . .” Natasha said.  
“It will, it will.”  
“You should hope so.”  
He looked out the window, feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself. As mournful as he felt, in general, about all the Avengers, they had not been his friends. There was a disconnect in his mind between one group and the other, after living on the fringe for so long.  
Sometimes there was a benefit to being alone for so long.  
As distracted as he was, he almost missed the plasma bolt, shot out of nowhere, it seemed, as it struck the front right tire of the car. He was jolted in his seat, hitting his arm painfully against the door. “Aah!”  
“Get down!” Natasha yelled, throwing the door open and using it for cover as she shot at the Chitauri. Loki stayed where he was, hidden in the backseat. Bruce covered his head and leaned back in his seat, but there wasn’t too much he could do.  
It was over in a minute, though, ending with Natasha rising and kicking the spent shells from her feet. She looked down at the truck. “So much for that, then. We’ll just have to find another way to get there.”  
Bruce nudged his door open with his good arm, having to work a bit at the handle; the blast has messed up the door. Loki alighted on the pavement, acting as if he hadn’t just cowered in the back of a car while a girl did all the fighting. Bruce rolled his eyes and slung his bag over his head and around his shoulders.  
Natasha eyed Loki warily, but said nothing. She walked off in the general direction of Virginia, determined that if they had to walk even part of the way, it was damned well going to be on the right course.  
The two men shrugged at each other and followed a few steps behind her, not noticing when they walked in sync. Bruce’s arm hurt, and he tucked it in the strap of his bag for a makeshift sling, just to take some of the pressure off his shoulder.  
“Hah,” Natasha breathed softly, stopping about ten blocks away from the shot up truck. “It’s perfect.”  
“ . . . A bus, Natasha? Really?”  
“Yes.”  
She had set her eye on a NYC public transport bus, with all its windows intact, lights and engine off, sitting in the street, a relatively clear patch of land around it. “This is what we need.”  
Loki caught Bruce’s eye and shrugged on noncommittal shoulder. _If she wants it . . ._ he indicated.  
Bruce shook his head, but helped her pry the doors open with his uninjured arm. “If you want it. You’re the driver.”  
He walked to the middle of the bus and stretched out on a couple seats, thinking over the situation. A mad Russian spy, who now worked for the US government was driving a stolen New York City bus out of the state, her passengers a time traveling, radioactive lab rat and the god of mischief who had unintentionally caused the death of her boyfriend.  
They were an odd group.  
Gently, she lay Hawkeye’s bow down on the floor by her feet, wedging it into place so it wouldn’t be lost or destroyed.  
Loki stopped in the aisle suddenly and returned to the front, hovering nervously behind the driver’s seat. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”  
She shrugged. “How hard can it be? I can _drive_ can’t I?”  
“Well, it does look a tad bit different than the other vehicles . . .”  
“It’ll be _fine_. So go sit down and get out of my way.”  
On his way past, Loki whispered to Bruce, “I don’t think is a good idea at all.”  
“You were the one who wanted to indulge her!”  
Loki let out a tiny whimper and stared at Bruce with pained eyes. “That fact is irrelevant, Dr. Banner.”  
The bus rumbled to life after she sparked some wires together. They shuddered and rolled around a bit as she got the starts and stops of the bus going. Eventually, it seemed like she knew what she was doing, though. She tentatively at first and then more vigorously pushed her foot against the pedal.  
They were the only ones moving in the city. Bruce leaned his head against the window glass and watched the buildings slip by. Before, he had not been a big reader of fiction. Some sci-fi, here and there. Mysteries, maybe, and some literary things. He had been too deep buried in thoughts of the cure by the time the zombie craze spread across the country to enjoy it, but if he had, what he saw was something like he might have envisioned.  
Buildings, while mostly intact, had broken windows and cracks along their edges. Abandoned cars and other property lined the streets—like life was at a standstill, completely finished. He couldn’t help blaming himself, either, which was a painful feeling.  
All this, the fact that it had been allowed to go so far, was _completely_ his fault.  
A wave of nausea washed over him and he shuddered. Tony. The Cap. Clint. Thor. Their deaths were all on _him_.  
He closed his eyes and sank down into the seat.


	6. Loki and Natasha (Act 3, part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Bruce change the timeline? It's already too late for Loki and Natasha in that universe, but in others...? Or will Bruce be killed before he has the chance to save the timeline?

"He’s still alive. Don’t worry, Na—agent.” Loki bit off the last syllables of her name when she glared at him, using the large mirror above her seat.  
“Wha—?” Bruce muttered groggily, inching upright in his seat. “What?”  
“You fell asleep, I think. We needed to check if you were alive. She was panicking.”  
“I was _not_. We just need you to live so you can fix this.” She had, in the past five hours, become quite an expert in the mirrors. Half of Loki’s comments barely merited a response, so she had learned quickly how to show him _exactly_ what she thought with her face.  
He was still a little bit bloody, and dried flecks were cast off all around the bus. “She’s lying,” he muttered.  
“You seem awfully chipper for a boy with a dead brother.”  
Loki blanched. “I’m just . . . trying not to . . . think about it.”  
“Right.”  
Bruce moved over on the seat and Loki sat down. Natasha still wasn’t entirely proficient at driving the bus and it still bumped more than it should have.  
Loki crossed his legs up on the seat and stared at the floor. “Have you ever done something without thinking it through first?”  
Bruce coughed. “Yes. It had rather a large impact on my life.”  
Loki shot him a quick glance but soon looked back down. “Well. Thor used to do that, everyday of his entire life. It caused him to be banished from Asgard. And I . . . I was given the happy task of learning I was Jötunn.” He coughed. “As much as I loved my brother, I used to disdain him for that. Everything was always his fault, it seemed to my mind . . . When Father fell into Odinsleep, I took my chance. With Thor gone, I was not . . . _officially_ prince, but the semantics were the same.” He sighed and looked at his hands. Bruce came to believe he was purposely leaving the blood as it was.  
“I need you to believe I never wanted Thor dead.”  
“I do, I think. Even in my time, you . . .” He thought back to what he remembered, and what he had heard. True, Loki had dropped him from the helicarrier in the cage meant for the Hulk, but on Stark Tower, he had had the chance to do so much _more_ than prick him with a tiny knife. “Even in my time, you never worked to kill him. Others, maybe, but never him.”  
“And never by my own hand, either,” Loki added. “I manipulate. I do not kill. I guide and I twist and I mold, but I will never kill. I’ll never cut down a tree or set the fire by my own hand.”  
“Isn’t that worse than doing it yourself?”  
Loki looked away, half shaking his head. “Believe what you will. It’s the code I stand by. It’s always who I’ve been. Thor is—was—very different from me. He was always in the thick of it, with those friends of his. The warriors. I never fit in with them.” Like the popular kid at the playground, his friends love him so much they put up with the weird, snotty little sibling, a year younger and several years smarter. Loki had always been the odd man out, even when he was loved. “Thor’s friends never liked me.”  
“Why did he take you with him, then?”  
“Because _he_ liked me.” A spasm of pain flitted across Loki’s lean features. “I’ve killed the only person who’s ever held me in an unconditional spot of forgiveness.”  
Bruce wouldn’t dare say _you have_ out loud, but he thought it clearly enough that Loki could tell.  
“That’s what I thought.” He hugged his knees to his chest and gave a little yelp as the bus hit a large bump and he almost fell off the seat. “I have never driven a car before, and yet I think that I could perhaps run this better than she . . .”  
“I fucking heard that, Loki. Don’t think you’re off the hook yet!”  
“Mmm, no, I wouldn’t think so.”  
Bruce turned away. The countryside was very different than the city. Although it, too, was almost completely devoid of any life at all, it looked nearly untouched. Everything was green and expansive. Loki seemed visibly more relaxed than in the city.  
“Not a fan of tall buildings?”  
“Not necessarily. Not a fan of a _lot_ of them. In Asgard there are several fine palaces as tall as any of your . . . er, _skyscrapers_. But there is also much more nature. Too much gray stone and soot is unnatural, don’t you think?”  
“I haven’t thought much about it.”  
“Even the organics of a slum city are far superior to the sterility of a city, which isn’t even clean at all. Humans are such strange creatures. They try so desperately hard to control their surroundings, when all they need to do is close their eyes and find _peace_ with what’s around them.”  
“You didn’t seem to think that when you thought you needed to lead.”  
“I was a fool.”  
Talk about mentality whiplash. “That wasn’t what you were saying four hours ago.”  
“I know. I needed to sort out some priorities. I think, perhaps, I would be better living on my own. At least for short periods of time. It might help me sort out my mind.”  
Bruce wasn’t going to disagree there.  
“Boys, enough chit chat. We’re almost there.”  
“Believe me, Agent Romanov. I want this concluded as much as you.”  
She gratified him no response, holding her eyes to the road with steady focus, her red curls bouncing slightly against her shoulders. They remained quiet and as still as they could be with the bumping wheels. Bruce felt almost more relaxed as he recognized the campus.  
“Here, Natasha. Stop here.”  
They ground to a halt that didn’t sound too good for the bus, but it would do for the time. Diligently, she set the vehicle into park before jumping out of her seat and throwing the lever to open the doors. They left them open as they walked away.  
The landscape that lay before them made Bruce stop in his tracks. The campus was wrecked, buildings half torn down, with several National Guard vehicles flipped sideways or burned at the fronts.  
And the _bodies_. While absolutely less than the amount in New York, their numbers were greater in one spot. All young people, early twenties, late teens. Very few professors. They lay along the campus.  
Natasha sucked in a breath. “What was so important that they had to stop _here_?”  
“I don’t know. There might have been some residual research of mine. I know the me that lived in this life did some research work on the Tesseract that he brought here. Maybe they wanted tha . . .”  
“Bruce?”  
He had let his words trail off as he walked away, toward a single body. It was a young woman, mid-twenties at most, with blonde hair and bloodstained sneakers.  
“Bruce?”  
“Can’t be . . .”  
“Do you know her?”  
“No!” he replied, turning violently on his heel. “I refuse to believe that I do. Let’s go.” He walked heavily on the concrete path. Loki trailed behind him.  
A shudder ran down Natasha’s spin. She glanced around, saw nothing, and followed after the men, holding one hand on the butt of her gun as she walked. Something didn’t _feel_ right.  
He seemed to know exactly where he was going, even after such a length of time. He dove right into the woods, hacking bushes and tall-growing bushes out of his way like a person who had done that every day of his life.  
“I don’t like this, Bruce,” Natasha murmured in the dark.  
There was a crack of a stick behind them. “What was that?”  
Loki shook his head and tried to shush her. She glared at him. “Don’t tell me what to do, Loki.”  
He shrugged with wide eyes, indicating she could do as she pleased. It wouldn’t be his fault _then_ if they were killed.  
“Loki, go get rid of them.”  
He stopped midstride, one foot poised over a high-growing root. “Excuse me? Are you asking me to kill them?”  
“ . . . If there are any aliens there, yes.”  
“You go kill them.”  
“I need to prove your loyalty, Loki.”  
“Go prove it yourself.”  
“So you’d easily join back with them, then?”  
“That’s not what I’m saying.”  
“Then _protect our backs_ ,” she hissed angrily.  
Bruce clutched his bag and tried not to intervene.  
“I won’t kill.”  
“Won’t kill them?”  
“No one. As in, not anyone.”  
They met each other’s eyes in silence. “Have it your way. But when I return, I swear to God, Loki, if he’s not safely on his way . . .” She crashed off, leaving the threat implied.  
They flinched at a sound, past the trees. It _sounded_ rather like Chitauri. Bruce grimaced.  
“You have a time machine to catch, doctor.”  
“Right.”  
They reached the shed by the lake. It was far more rotted and a grayish brown color, but otherwise seemed intact.  
The door hinges were so rusty, they nearly snapped off when Loki tried to open the door. “Oops.”  
Bruce shrugged. “Oh well. It’s not like we’ll be needing it again any time soon.”  
The time machine was as he had left it, surprisingly rust-free and still quite shiny, even with its layer of water spots and animal scratchings.  
Bruce reached to his neck and pulled the chain up and out of his shirt. Perhaps he had known this day would come . . . He had worn the key to the time machine around his neck every day for almost six years, just for this one moment, when his dreams of a normal life were forever shattered.  
It made such a little sound, the click of the lock . . .  
Loki Laufeyson took the role of Captain Rogers, assisting Bruce in resetting the machine and helping him strap in.  
He, too, paused with his hand on the door. “We’ll never see each other again, doctor.”  
“No. I might see you, someday, but you’ll never see me again.”  
Loki nodded, slowly, the tiniest of movements. “No, I suppose not. And, Dr. Banner, I apologize.”  
“For what?”  
“For what I did under the Tesseract’s control.”  
It was such a funny thing. In two completely opposite people, both used the same moment to make an apologetic statement, for which neither had control. Human nature is the same among both gods and men, and even most different of the lot can surprise you with their cores.  
“You’re forgiven, Loki.”  
Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better, but it did lift the slightest of weights off his shoulders. “Thank you.”  
Even different people want to be remembered the same way.

Traveling was so much different this time than it had the first two that Bruce was afraid for one second that he had done something catastrophically wrong. There was a wrenching, twisting feeling in his stomach and his head pounded like a beaten African drum.  
He could see his life—but no, it wasn’t his life. It was the _other_ Bruce’s life. Playing backwards from the building collapse. Everything was disappearing in puffs of smoke, and yet he could still _remember_.  
He remembered everything as he fell back to reality with crash and a painful bump on the head, bouncing around so much more in the capsule than he had the other two times.  
The pain in his chest subsided and all that remained was to stop himself one last time from making an even graver error.  
Bruce smashed at the straps that were supposed to keep him safe and threw open the door of the time machine. He ran full tilt through the woods, not even stopping to register their overgrown state had returned to what it was the first time. He reached the campus, huffing and puffing just in time to see himself and Betty, holding hands and discussing his fate, although they didn’t know it.  
He searched wildly, looking for the newly arrived Bruce. He was nowhere to be seen! Not a trace.  
His breath evened. The universe, desperate for equilibrium, had struggled to right itself as he returned to that day and that time in that place for the third time in his life. Reality was stretched so thin, that the second Bruce Banner had simply popped out of existence. The time stream can only be crossed so many times before it must be cut, a snarl too tightly wound in a tangled ball of yarn.  
A stream of reality, another universe, winked out of existence. Perhaps the world really did revolve around Dr. Bruce Banner . . .  
He looked up to see himself looking. The other Bruce Banner had paused on the steps, a thought occurring to him. Bruce remembered that thought, a disquieting sense of the world. He remembered what he had done next, too . . .  
He had looked across the campus to see a man, showing the thumbs up sign. He didn’t know to who or why, but he had taken it as a sign.  
Slowly, Bruce raised his hands. He saw a small glimpse of a smile on his own mouth, and knew that the universe was right.  
The girl with blonde hair was still playing her guitar on the steps. He walked across the campus and smiled at her, dropping five or six dollars into the case. “Just a tip. Take next week off. Don’t come to school, all right?”  
“Uh . . .”  
“Just trust me on this one, okay?”  
“I don’t know you.”  
“You don’t have to know me, you just have to trust me.”  
She watched him quizzically. “Well, we’ll see. If I don’t come in, I hope it’s for a really good reason.”  
“It will be.”

Steve swallowed and looked down at the floor. Maybe he wasn’t coming back, then. He hoped the world was better for Bruce, now that he had saved himself an awful fate.  
There was a metal clang and Steve looked up, surprised. The time machine was back, the front handle coated in something that looked too liquid and insubstantial to be rust.  
Bruce burst out, gasping for air like he was drowning.  
“Bruce! Are you all right?”  
“F—fine, Cap. Fine.”  
Tony scoffed. “You don’t look it.” He reentered the room with three beers in his hands, glancing at his watch. “And you’re also a minute late. You said ten; it’s been eleven.”  
Bruce struggled to his feet. “You’d begrudge me an extra sixty seconds?”  
“You damn better believe I would.”  
“Sorry to disappoint you.”  
Steve looked back at the metal machine. “What is that? On the door.”  
Bruce glanced at him. “Blood.”  
“Blood?”  
“Thor’s blood, actually.”  
“W—what?”  
“Long story.”  
Tony handed him one of the bottles. “We’ve got nothing but time here. Minus sixty seconds.”  
Bruce shook his head and took a swig. “I apologize.”  
“For what?”  
“Doubting you. I won’t do it again. At least for another week.”  
“Excuse you?”  
Bruce shrugged. “You’re Tony Stark. What if you told me some ridiculous fact that I simply took for granted and then made a fool out of myself?”  
“True.” Tony grinned.  
Steve seemed to be struggling, although he accepted the beer from Tony. “Thor’s blood?”  
“Yeah. And Loki put it there.”  
“ _Loki_? What in the world did you _do_?”  
“A whole lot of shit. I’ll tell you about it . . .”


End file.
